Wreckage of missing IAF chopper found in Papum Pare District in Arunachal Pradesh

New Delhi :  The wreckage of the Indian Air Force chopper that went missing on Tuesday has been found in the Papum Pare district of Arunachal Pradesh. The advanced light helicopter (ALH) of the Indian Air Force has been deployed for evacuating people from the flood-hit district of Papum Pare in Arunachal Pradesh since Tuesday morning, went missing in the afternoon amid heavy fog and rain.

There were three crew members and a police personnel on board when it took off from Sagalee on Tuesday. The IAF chopper that had already made several sorties since the morning and had evacuated as many as 50 people including several women and children from Sagalee to Itanagar, went missing around 4 PM on Tuesday.
05/07/17 News Nation

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Teams scour Vizag forest for An-32

Visakhapatnam: Following an alert of a possible air crash, teams of foresters have begun a search near the Sarugudu village in Nathavaram mandal here on Saturday afternoon.

Officials of the Suryalanka Air Force Base said they had received a call from a resident of one of the habitations near Sarugudu that he had heard a loud sound on July 22, which could be from an air crash, DFO Narsipatnam Sekhar Babu told The Hindu on phone.

“Following the Air Force Station alert, we sent our foresters to the Sarugudu village. They will take the tribal people along with them to search the Sarugudu reserve forest, the DFO added.

Two teams of five members each from two ranges in the Narsipatnam division and residents are engaged in the search.
31/07/16 GS Subrahmanyam/The Hindu

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Manohar Parrikar Meets Missing AN-32 Crew Member's Family

Pune: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today met the family of Flight Lieutenant Kunal Barpatte, who was the navigator on board the AN-32 aircraft which went missing on July 22 off Chennai, and said he was personally monitoring the situation.

"I am shocked. This was one of the IAF's safest, sturdiest and oldest aircraft. How can it go down? I am personally monitoring the situation," he told Air Force officer's father Rajendra Barpatte.

Mr Barpatte requested the minister to replace such planes with better ones and ensure safety of Indian Air Force personnel.

Mr Parrikar asked the Indian Air Force officials who were present during the meeting, to keep the families of the crew members informed about the search operation.

He said he has appointed an official each for the family of every crew member as a contact person for information. Mr Parrikar later said he felt it was his responsibility to meet the family.
30/07/16 PTI/NDTV

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India seeks US satellite imagery for tracing the missing AN-32 aircraft

New Delhi: After taking Isro’s help, India on Friday said it has sought the help of the USA in getting satellite imagery for tracing the missing Indian Air Force (IAF) AN-32 aircraft that ditched into the Bay of Bengal on July 22. Defence minister Manohar Parrikar while replying to an impromptu question on the floor of the Rajya Sabha said this, even as more details emerged about the ill-fated aircraft that was on a routine sortie from Chennai to Port Blair carrying 29 persons, including the crew.
The last thing that was recorded was a message by the pilot seven minutes before the aircraft disappeared was that due to thick cloud, the flight path would deviate to the right, said Parrikar.

“However, at the time of coming down, it actually tilted towards the left and descended very fast from 23,000 feet. There was no SOS from the pilot,” the minister said.

Parrikar said the aircraft was almost at the end of the range of the radar of the civil aviation at Chennai. There is an area around 200 nautical miles off Chennai where there is no radar coverage either from Chennai or Port Blair. And another 8010 minutes into flying, the aircraft would have entered that no radar area, the minister said.
The particular AN -32 aircraft had flown 279 hours after its first overhaul and the pilot had put in about 500 hours on this route, he added.
30/07/16 Deevakar Anand/DNA

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Pilot may not have switched on AN-32's alert beacon, says manufacturer

Chennai: Deepening the mystery behind the disappearance of the Indian Air Force (IAF)'s AN-32, the aircraft manufacturer, Antonov, has said the on-board emergency locator transmitter (ELT) may not have been activated because of two reasons - the aircraft hitting the surface without enough force or the pilot failing to switch the device on.
The transport aircraft, on a routine flight to Port Blair with 29 people on board, went missing 270km off the Chennai coast on July 22.
In response to a questionnaire from TOI, the Ukraine-based aircraft company said the aircraft had two ELTs - a stationary ARTEX C406-1 ELT manufactured by ACR Electronics/Artex Products, the US and a French-made portable KANNAD 406AS ELT manufactured by Orolia. "In an emergency, the pilot has to activate the ELT beacon manually. Probably, the pilot of the missing AN-32 did not switch it on. If longitudinal load factor (impact) was less than 2.3g, the stationary ELT would not have activated automatically. Radio waves are not transmitted in the water. There is no signal from ELT under water for this reason," Antonov press service spokesperson said in an e-mail from Ukraine.
Indian Coast Guard eastern region commander Rajan Bargotra had raised concerns over the absence of signals from ELT of the disappeared flight, the only limitation in the massive search operation over the Bay of Bengal code named as 'Operation Talash'. "The limitation is that we are unable to get any signal from the ELT beacon. Had that transmission been available, the search would have been much easier for us. It happened so in a couple of aircraft accidents, which have happened over sea. In none of them, the ELT was operating, like in the case of the ICG Dornier in June 2015," he had told reporters recently.
30/07/16 Yogesh Kabirdoss/Times of India

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The Mystery of the Missing Antonov 32: Hope and a Few Questions

"I believe my son will be back," said Sunita Verma, the mother of missing 22-year old Raghuvir Verma who was on board the AN32 aircraft with 28 others which disappeared over the Bay of Bengal on 22 July, in a low voice sitting in her quarters in Port Blair right next to the airport.

Wife of a former police constable and mother to two sons of which Raghuvir was the younger, Sunita had a blank look on her face when I first visited the family four days after the plane went down. It was evening and the cramped looking living room was full of empathetic friends, relatives and neighbours.
"Her tears have dried up," one of them said, "she hasn’t stopped crying ever since heard about it on TV".
I was taken aback by her resolve when Sunita uttered those words looking straight at my eyes.
All I felt for her then, from an untouchable and safe distance of an observer of yet another tragedy in my journalistic career, was deep sympathy. But I am not so sure now.
Three days later and a week after the plane went missing, when Raghuvir’s family made the fantastic claim that they discovered his phone ringing till noon that day though no one picked it up, all I visualised was Sunita’s face which was desperate to cling to hope.
"It was she who first found out that the phone was ringing last evening. We did not pay much attention to her and thought it to be a rant of a depressed mind. But when we called that number which remained switched off since the plane disappeared, it was ringing. Miracles happen, don’t they?” said Lakhichand Verma, Raghuvir’s father.
What's even more baffling was the second claim which came from Shankar, Raghuvir’s friend back home.
"Here’s the screen shot of the mobile messaging App Raghuvir used and it shows that he last viewed his messages on the morning of 26th July. That's four days after the plane went down!" he said while holding out his phone in support of his claim.
"We have said all of this to the air force officials from the Andaman and Nicobar Command," informed Ranvir, Raghuvir’s brother, adding, "they have promised us that would get back with their probe findings within a day."
30/07/16 Sougata Mukhopadhyay/News18

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Technology gives good cover to air safety

Chennai: While we are yet to get over mourning the loss our fellow citizens who died on the Indian Coast Guard Dornier flight last year, disaster has struck again with the missing Indian Air Force courier flight, AN-32.

Flight crashes are continuously on the rise in our country. Experts believe the age of aircraft, wear and tear of components and slow updates and maintenance to be the reasons for crashes and flight halts while on the air.

So, here are some of the things that have to be known about flight safety. Adopting these technologies with adequate care will mitigate aircraft accidents to a great extent, say experts.

Radar is an flight detection system that uses radio waves to determine the range, angle and speed of flights.

A radar system consists of a transmitter producing radio waves, an emitting antenna, a receiving antenna to capture any reflected signals from flights in the path of the emitted signal, a receiver and processor to determine properties of the objects.
The signals reflected from the flights will reveal all the details about the current location of the flight.
30/07/16 S Ben Raja/News Today

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Missing An-32: Focus shifts to underwater search operations

New Delhi: After six days of intense aerial and surface scanning for the missing An-32 aircraft, the search and rescue operations are now shifting significantly under water, with additional deployment of specialised vehicles that can go deep into the sea.

While the aerial and surface searches will continue, officials said the strengthening of underwater capabilities is primarily because of two reasons: the lack of any credible leads yet, and the likelihood of the aircraft being deep under the sea.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said in the Lok Sabha on Thursday that no concrete evidence on the missing aircraft had emerged so far. “Current search operations are focused on surface and underwater domain to look for survivors and debris,” he informed the House.

In addition to the Navy submarine which was deployed a few days ago, several other underwater assets were being pressed into service to monitor the sea bad. The general depth in the search area is about 3-3.5 km.


INS Nirupak, with autonomous underwater vehicle and camera, joined the search on Wednesday. Assistance has also been sought from the Geological Survey of India for the deployment of its Oceanographic research vessel, Samundra Ratnakar, for sub surface search. In addition, the National Institute of Ocean Technology research vessel, Sagar Nidhi, is expected to reach the search area in a few days for conducting sea bed profiling.

Briefing Parliament on the events of the day of the crash, Mr. Parrikar said weather in the area, approx. 500 km East of Tambaram, was mainly overcast with multi-layered clouds and embedded convection. “One thundershower cloud was reported in the area. The aircraft had weather avoidance radar and had asked for deviation to the right to avoid it,” he observed.
29/07/16 The Hindu

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Parents of missing pilot await a ‘miracle’

Gurgaon: Even as the search operation for Indian Air Force’s AN-32 aircraft (K-2743) with 29 persons on board drew a blank five days after it went missing last Friday, the parents of the missing aircraft’s pilot, Flying Lieutenant Pushpender Singh, in Gurgaon said they are optimistic of his safe return.

“The whole nation is praying for their safety. I hope all those on board will return to their homes without any harm. Miracles do happen,” said Pushpender's father Anchal Singh, a Master Warrant Officer in the IAF, posted at Palam in Delhi.

Sitting in the verandah of his house in Sector 4 here, Mr. Singh, recalled Pushpender as an “adventure sports enthusiast”.

“He loved trekking and often went on mountain motorcycle rides with his friends. He was clear about joining the Air Force from the beginning. He had made it to an engineering college in Hyderabad, but chose the National Defence Academy over it. Also, he marked the IAF as his first choice in the NDA,” said Mr. Singh, not betraying any signs of despair while talking about his son.

Pushpender’s elder sister, a software engineer, works at a private firm in Gurgaon.

Mr. Singh conceded that it were difficult times and not easy for the women in the family to come terms with the situation.

The family got the news about the missing aircraft through television channels and later confirmed it from Pushpender’s regiment.

“He would often fly AN-32 aircraft from Chennai to Port Blair. So when the television broke the news of an AN-32 plane having gone missing, we got a bit worried. And our worst fears came true after his regiment confirmed that it was Pushpender who was flying it,” said Mr. Singh.
29/07/16 Ashok Kumar/The Hindu

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Missing AN-32: late arrival of NIOT vessel delays underwater search

Chennai: Failure to locate oil sleek or any obvious signs of the missing aircraft after extensive scouring of 300 nautical mile off the Chennai coast has made rescuers anxious.  reuters file photo for representation
As the fruitless search for the IAF aircraft AN-32 continued on Day 7, defence authorities deferred the underwater search due to the delay in the arrival of NIOT’s vessel, Sagar Nidhi.

Failure to locate oil sleek or any obvious signs of the missing aircraft after extensive scouring of 300 nautical mile off the Chennai coast has made rescuers anxious.

“(NIOT’s vessel) was supposed to reach Chennai coast on Thursday. It is delayed due to bad weather and will arrive soon to start deep-sea search,” a senior Coast Guard official seeking anonymity said.

He said Sagar Nidhi is a vessel with fully automatic diesel-electric propulsion equipped with high-tech searching devices including a winch to lift 60 tonnes from the depth of 6000 metres in the sea.

The official said despite the weather remaining good, the sea has become rough since Wednesday evening.

“We will have difficulties in intensifying the search,” he said, adding the search would not be stopped.

Coast Guard sources said they have requested deployment of INS Nirupak, since Sagar Nidhi is taking time to arrive.
29/07/16 Deccan Herald

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Look for an alternative to Soviet-built AN-32 planes: BJD MP

New Delhi: India should pro-actively search for an alternative to the Soviet built AN-32 transport aircraft, one of the IAF planes which has gone missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, the Lok Sabha was told today.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, BJD leader Bhartruhari Mahtab expressed concern that the IAF transport plane was still missing despite a combined search by the Indian Navy, Coast Guard and the IAF.

He strongly pleaded that it was time India looked for an alternative as it faced a strange situation as regards supply of spares in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Mahtab said that while the engine part of the plane was being built by Russia, other components are being manufactured by neighbouring Ukraine, the two countries which are not on the best of terms.
28/07/16 PTI/Business Standard

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Tech too old, experts turn to maths to pinpoint AN-32

Chennai: The search for the missing Indian Air Force transport aircraft is decidedly more difficult than it was during the hunt for the Coast Guard’s Dornier, as the flight data recorder of this plane - one of the older versions of aircraft - does not emit any signals, said experts.

The AN-32 carrying 29 passengers, had plunged into the sea on July 22 soon after taking off from Chennai. The black box of an aircraft is usually the only hope when the emergency locator transmitter (ELT) fails. The black box emits signals for 30 days - it was due to that the Coast Guard plane’s debris was retrieved from the sea after the ROV, MSV Olympic Canyon, detected its signals.

All hopes now lie on the success of National Institute of Ocean Technology’s research vessel Sagar Nidhi in locating the debris of the aircraft in the seafloor. Scientists are working on a mathematical model, said the director of Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Sciences (INCOIS) Satheesh C Shenoi, who also holds the additional charge of NIOT director. That was how a missing Air France flight was located in the bed of Atlantic Ocean after two years.

With 228 passengers and crew aboard, Air France Flight AF 447 disappeared during stormy weather over the Atlantic Ocean while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009. During the first two years, the search party tried four separate times - the first went on for six days after the aircraft went missing, and the second was acoustic searches to detect pings.
29/07/16 C Shivakumar/New Indian Express

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No concrete evidence about missing AN-32 plane: Manohar Parrikar

New Delhi:  "Several inputs and leads" regarding floating objects have been picked up but there is no concrete evidence so far with respect to missing AN-32 aircraft of the IAF, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Making a suo motu statement on the disappearnce of the plane on July 22, he said the search efforts are focussed on the surface as well as the underwater domain to look for survivors and debris.
Giving details of the incident, Parrikar said the search for the missing plane is being supplemented by the use of indigenous satellites such as CARTOSAT 2A and 2B which have the ability to cover areas of the swath of 27x27 km and have a resolution of 0.8 metres.
"Several inputs and leads on floating objects and possible transmissions have been picked up from satellite imagery and air surveillance efforts. Each of these has been thoroughly investigated by ships and aircraft. However, no concrete evidence with respect to AN-32 has emerged, so far," he said.
28/07/16 PTI/Times of India

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Will AN-32 meet fate like Malaysian airline MH-370, ask people in Port Blair

It has been six days and Sunita Verma is glued to her television set, in the hope that she gets some news of her son Raghuveer Verma.
Newly inducted into the Indian Air Force, airman Raghuveer is one of the 29 people who were onboard the ill-fated AN32 aircraft which went missing on Friday. Even as the Indian forces conduct their biggest ever search operation, family members of the missing people are hoping against all odds for the return of their loved ones.
In Port Blair, Raghuveer's family is in a state of shock.
The 22-year-old had just completed his training from Air Force Training college in Bengaluru and joined duty with a posting in Rajasthan's Barmer. He was coming to meet his family when the plane went missing.
Raghuveer reached Tambaram last week and to be ferried to Port Blair in the AN32.
"Papa, receive me from the airport at 11:30," were his last words to his father, Lakhichand Verma. Since then, it has been the longest wait for Verma family.
28/07/16 Indrajit Kundu/India Today

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Manmohan's plane nearly crashed during Moscow landing

New Delhi: Sources told TOI that on November 11, 2007, Air India One flying the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on an official visit to Russia did not lower its landing gear as required when it was approaching to land in Moscow. The crew of the Boeing 747 did so only after being told by the Moscow ATC that the aircraft wheels were not down and warning lights in the cockpit.
The flight's data recorder (FDR) — which preserves recent history of a flight through the recording of dozens of parameters collected several times per second) —show that the VVIP aircraft flew below the 'electronic glide slope' for a while before corrective action was taken. The electronic glide slope is the flight path a descending aircraft has to follow to ensure it gently touches down on the runway. Despite repeated attempts, AI did not respond.
TOI spoke to many pilots to understand if safety procedures were breached on that VVIP flight. "What is perplexing is that according to the FDR data of this flight, the aircraft descended to a rather low height before corrective action was taken. Simultaneously, the ATC warned the aircraft that its landing gear is not down and alarm bell sounded in cockpit," said a senior commander who trains and examines junior pilots.
27/07/16 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Despite pings, no breakthrough yet, says Parrikar

Several pings have been picked up over the Bay of Bengal during the search for the missing An-32 but there is no breakthrough yet, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Tuesday.

“As of now, there is no confirmed finding, but wherever there were small leads — there were four to five blinks which were noticed — we are trying to find out whether they are misleading or whether they have some meaning,” Mr. Parrikar said in response to questions in the Rajya Sabha.

However, he said no resources had been spared in the efforts and “everything is with time.”

“We have used satellite imagery. We have used surveillance. We have used P-8i extensively. We have used almost about 30 ships, including the Coast Guard, the Indian Navy and the Merchant ship. The submarine is already in the area,” Mr. Parrikar elaborated on the efforts.

While several possible leads were noticed in the area of probability, none of them had yet yielded any positive location of the missing aircraft.

In the five days since the aircraft went missing with 29 personnel, there has been no trace of the Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) or the Emergency Locator Beacon (ELB).

“The PLB is active for 48 hours after which it becomes sporadic and can remain for few days. Both the ELBs on the aircraft are located inside and they may not have been activated,” one officer monitoring the situation told The Hindu.
27/07/16 Dinakar Peri/The Hindu

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Search for missing IAF AN-32 aircraft continues for sixth day today

Chennai: The co-ordinated search for the missing aircraft AN-32 of the Indian Air Force (IAF) continued for the sixth day on Wednesday in the extended area of the Bay of Bengal between Chennai and Port Blair.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said a lot of resources have been deployed to work to locate the missing aircraft and added that the Ministry is trying its best to find out leads. A top Coast Guard official earlier said no debris or survivors have been located yet.
An international safety network has been activated to alert the merchant ships passing by the zone of search operation to look out for any survivors or the debris. The Andaman and Nicobar Command of the defence forces are keeping a watch for it even beyond the search zone.
As part of the procedure, a formal complaint about the missing aircraft has been registered with the Selaiyur police station in Chennai by the Air Force authorities. India’s largest ever search operation over the sea to trace the missing twin-engined aircraft is getting imageries of the search area from the ISRO through its radar imaging satellite RISAT.
27/07/16 Indian Express

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Ping heard? Search teams dive deeper

Chennai: Even as Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar claimed there were small unverifiable leads  from the missing IAF aircraft AN-32, search and rescue operations failed to yield any results on Tuesday. “We have detected 4-5 pings, and are trying to verify whether these are real or false alarms,” media reports quoted Parrikar as having said in the Rajya Sabha. Meanwhile, the focus on the fifth day was on how to carry out the search at a depth of 3,500 metres.

Marred by rough seas and no exact location of where the aircraft went down, the search is being conducted by extrapolating the time of the crash and the only hope is to catch the signals emanating from the flight decoder recorder, which is feared to be under the sea at a depth of 3,500 metres. Sources are hoping this could be achieved by National Institute of Ocean Technology research vessel ‘Sagarnidhi’, as it has the most advanced sonar, multi-beam echo sounder. While the sonar of the Indian submarines can’t come handy at such a depth, it is learnt Sagarnidhi’s multi-beam echo sounder could travel up to 6,000 metres depth. Like other sonar systems, multi-beam systems emit sound waves in a fan shape beneath a ship’s hull. The amount of time taken for the sound waves to bounce off the seabed and return to a receiver is used to determine water depth.
27/07/16 C. Shivakumar/New Indian Express

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Was IAF aircraft AN-32 too old to fly?

Chennai: What went wrong with the AN-32 that made the pilot not even be able to communicate with the ATC and just disappear? Experts feel that structural failure may be one of the major reasons behind the aircraft vanishing off the radar.

Speaking to 'News Today', retired Squadron Leader S Kannan said  though theoretically the flight was certified to fly, the 34-year-old aircraft will have its own fatigue which could have led to the disaster.

"It is learnt that there were some minor problems with the aircraft a few days ago and repair works were carried out. Though the engine was overhauled and certified 'ok' for flying, the question arises whether the structure could have withstood the high power of the engine," he said.

Kannan said he has flown that type of aircraft and even in normal conditions, the amount of vibration experienced in the cockpit is very high. "The engines used in the AN-32 are derated ones which can produce even more power. With the aircraft taking off at 8.30 am and going off the radar in 15 minutes could only mean that the aircraft crashed even before it reached the cruising height," he added.

The option of an engine failure can be ruled out as there are indicators which will tell the pilot if there is something wrong with the engine. Even if one engine fails, the pilot can convey it to the ATC and request an emergency landing and even in case of both engines failing simultaneously (which is a very rare occurrence) the pilots are trained to glide the aircraft for a safe landing.
26/07/16 M Balasubramani/News Today

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Missing An-32 crew: ‘I trust God will save my only son, a miracle will happen’, says Narita Thakur

Jalandar: In Garhshankar town of Hoshiarpur district, Narita Thakur waits with bated breath for news of her 19-year-old son who was on board the Indian Air Force (IAF) plane that had gone missing over the Arabian Sea on its way to Port Blair on Friday.
Navjot Thakur joined the IAF last August and had completed his training just three months ago from Port Blair. Search operations for the missing plane was expanded recently to cover a wide area.
“He was so happy when he came on leave in June this year and celebrated his birthday with us. He was excited about his job and posting in Port Blare but was a little sad at the time of leaving on July 1,” said his cousin Diksha while talking to The Indian Express, adding that he was quite concerned about his mother.
Navjot’s father had left his family when he was an infant.
“He is my world and I trust that God will save him for me,” said mother, who was offering prayers to several gods and goddesses at her home. “I know that miracles happen and here too it will happen.”
27/07/16 Anju Agnihotri Chaba/Indian Express

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